Bayard looks to fund new well

Contractors worked on the Bayard City Hall parking lot repaving project before the City Council meeting on Monday. City staff said work should wrap by next week.(Press Staff Photo by Benjamin Fisher)

In an attempt to fund the drilling of a new well, Bayard Clerk Treasurer Kristy Ortiz attended a Colonias application workshop in Las Cruces last week. The well project has been planned for more than a year but even after Ortiz’s training, funding is not entirely certain.

The planned well would replace two of Bayard’s older wells. The city has six active. Ortiz has estimated the project will cost $600,000. With a cash-strapped city budget and an estimated state budget deficit of more than $500 million to contend with, that is a steep price tag for any project.

“My original plan was to apply for 2017 Colonias funds as well as legislative funding,” Ortiz told the City Council at their meeting. “But, at the workshop I learned that we cannot use those two pots of money as matching against each other because they’re both state severance tax funds.”

Ortiz said that if the city took all of that out in a loan, it would require both a 10 percent match in cash and another 10 percent from somewhere else.

“I would hate to take $60,000 out of the budget in one chunk for one year,” she said.

Her plan now is to go to the state Legislature for $200,000 to $300,000 so the city can at least start the project, then look at other sources for the rest of the cost. But, state legislators and officials have said repeatedly that there may be no or little legislative capital outlay funding in the next two years as the state fights to right the huge budget shortfall it was hit with following a drop in oil prices and the tax revenue the state usually gleans from it.

The city is looking at a deficit itself, Ortiz confirmed, which Bayard Municipal Court Judge Jose Sandoval gave as his newest reason for the council to direct Bayard Police Chief Willy Kerin to return traffic citations to his bench. The Bayard Police Department began directing the citations around Municipal Court to Magistrate Court in 2015 under then-Chief Sam Charbagi. Charbagi and, now, Kerin have said the reason for this move was their officers were tired of having to correct errors they made while filing citations. Sandoval and staff, though, said that some of those errors have nearly led to wrongful imprisonment in the past.

At Monday’s meeting, Sandoval presented the council with findings from the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts that indicated the city would have collected $58,858 through the Municipal Court had the police directed the citations to that court. He also repeated a regular point: that the move around his court also keeps him from fulfilling the duties he was charged with as an elected official.

Sandoval made his presentation during public input rather than securing a place on the agenda, so the council was not technically supposed to respond. But, Councilor Zeke Santa Maria — who Sandoval said was the only councilor who has shown any concern about the move — spoke up.

“I do think we should look into this further before we lose this money,” he said.

In other Bayard police news, the council approved an increase in wages for Kerin. The 10-cent-per-hour raise was to bring the city into compliance with a federal rule change which would have forced the council to pay time-and-a-half for time over 40 hours per week for even salaried employees unless they paid them more at base.

“In order to keep those as salaried employees, which we always do for department heads, we had to increase this pay,” Ortiz explained. “It equates to about $280 more per year.”

The council also approved a 25-cent-per-hour raise and a promotion to lieutenant for Bayard police officer Joe Sierra. But, it wasn’t unanimously popular.

“His attitude has changed since he first started,” Santa Maria said flatly of the newly promoted officer. “He’s real cocky now, looking down his nose.”

Santa Maria still voted in favor of the promotion after a brief hesitation.

The council approved the same 10-cent-per-hour raise for Maintenance Department head Eddie Sedillos as they did Kerin.

Sedillos and his small staff have been up to their elbows in requests for aid removing widespread debris left over from recent rains.

“The city is working to repair damage from washouts during the most recent rains,” said Councilor Raul Villanueva. “Bayard’s pretty big. It takes time.”

“Eddie only has three employees to work with,” Santa Maria added.

Mayor Charles Kelly said the city had dealt with its own problems as well, as the wastewater treatment plant had flooded from wall to wall. Everyone on the council thanked Sedillos for his hard work.

Outside, while the council met, backhoes continued work on a City Hall parking lot repaving project. Ortiz said it should be finished by next week. The repaving project cost the town $45,000 from its general fund since there are no grants for town hall renovations.